The anti-climactic cowardice of DETR Administration

It seems bull shit is as normal a part of life as the bulls that make the shit. So it really didn’t surprise me on Friday February 4^th when, at 3:45 PM, I received a call from Karen Belleni, the Personnel Officer III who has been manipulating my discharge alongside fellow bull Janice John, the Deputy Administrator of Vocational Rehabilitation.

The point of the call was, I suppose, to replace my request for an exit interview by calling me at the end of the business day on the day I had wanted to come in for a meeting. I had been perfectly clear in my letter to Janice John and in my voice mail message that I wanted an exit interview and that I did not intend to appeal the decision to discharge me prior to completion of my year-long probation. I was also clear that I wanted a meeting, and an HR advocate. That was effectively "shit no. 1" on my bull shit scale.

"Shit no. 2" was that the call to me was made by Karen Belleni and not by the Deputy Administrator with whom I’d made the request. As I’ve said for years; integrity is the most important aspect of any relationship, even with a spouse, and certainly something expected in both corporate America and government. It is obviously something lacking in both; hence the problems we face in our great country today. As a trained psychotherapist I suppose I should realize, as well, that a failure to have adequate role-models for integrity can lead to a lack of the understanding of it, and therefore a lack of individual integrity - another problem we are facing in our country. It was disappointing that Ms. John didn’t have the integrity, or wherewithal, to own her decision to cut me at my 11^th month and to face me. Cowardice is a luxury not allowed toward the top of the business food chain. As with a Commander of an Army; any decision you make as an Administrator is yours, and all repercussions are yours as well.

I politely spoke with Ms. Belleni as Ms. John hid silently on a second line. We went around about what it was I was requesting, and what an exit interview is. Apparently to the State of Nevada, or at least the bulls at DETR, an exit interview is something afforded only to permanent employees when they choose to leave. That was not how I understood the process from Michelle, the supervisor in Payroll, however that was the story as Ms. Belleni stuck to it. She finally admitted that they didn’t understand the way in which I was using the term ‘exit interview’ to which I retorted they might have had they returned my call and opened dialogue with me. ‘Shit no.3.’ In the end, Ms. Belleni told me what I had already learned from Michelle in Payroll; a supervisor with no ties to me at all, but who was willing to hear what I had to say and endeavor to find me the answers I need.

Only after the call was fairly well concluded, and Ms. Belleni had played her part as pitbull, did Ms. John bother to speak up at all. It was very anti-climactic, to say the least, having the woman on my hiring panel, who supervised my real supervisor, and appeared to care about my satisfaction as an employee of Vocational Rehabilitation when hired, suddenly sound up as the mouse in the background with a pathetic apology for misunderstanding my motivation. But what was really pathetic, and ‘shit no. 5,’ was the whole process of being treated by the Deputy Administrator as if I was an enemy of the State instead of an employee who had just worked 11 months in service to the disabled unemployed citizens of Las Vegas, and who had just been left unemployed myself - with no warning and no justification.